Poor, reckless, rude, low-born, untaught,
Bewildered, and alone,
A heart, with English instinct fraught,
He yet can call his own.
Ay, tear his body limb from limb,
Bring cord or axe or flame,
He only knows that not through him
Shall England come to shame.
Far Kentish hop-fields round him seemed,
Like dreams, to come and go;
Bright leagues of cherry-blossom gleamed,
One sheet of living snow;
The smoke above his father's door
In gray soft eddyings hung;
Must he then watch it rise no more,
Doomed by himself so young?
Yes, honor calls!—with strength like steel
He put the vision by;
Let dusky Indians whine and kneel,
An English lad must die.
And thus, with eyes that would not shrink,
With knee to man unbent,
Unfaltering on its dreadful brink,
To his red grave he went.
Vain mightiest fleets of iron framed,
Vain those all-shattering guns,
Unless proud England keep untamed
The strong heart of her sons;
So let his name through Europe ring,—
A man of mean estate,
Who died, as firm as Sparta's king,
Because his soul was great.
[Footnote A: The "Buffs" are the East Kent Regiment.]
SIR FRANCIS HASTINGS DOYLE.
THE TURK IN ARMENIA.
FROM "THE PURPLE EAST."
What profits it, O England, to prevail
In camp and mart and council, and bestrew
With argosies thy oceans, and renew
With tribute levied on each golden gale
Thy treasuries, if thou canst hear the wail
Of women martyred by the turbaned crew,
Whose tenderest mercy was the sword that slew,
And lift no hand to wield the purging flail?
We deemed of old thou held'st a charge from Him
Who watches girdled by his seraphim,
To smite the wronger with thy destined rod.
Wait'st thou his sign? Enough, the unanswered cry
Of virgin souls for vengeance, and on high
The gathering blackness of the frown of God!